Welcome to our family blog!

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Our Family

I’d like to introduce you to the wonderful family who God has blessed me with. For the sake of privacy, we choose to use nicknames here on our family blog, and we all enjoy coming up with blog names that express each person’s unique personality or stage of life. I try to revise this page at least once a year, updating pictures and bios, and occasionally changing someone’s blog name when their old one just doesn’t suit them anymore.

Iron Man, Handsome, and me

I gave my husband the nickname “Iron Man” in reference to Proverbs 27:17 – “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” In the culture today, we don’t often see men of “iron” who have the discernment and strength to sharpen another in their faith. I am blessed to be married to a guy who is “sharp,” but also gentle and loving enough to help me and others become sharpened as well. My kind, funny and friendly husband is a natural leader who is wise and patient, both in the workplace and in the home. He is a man after God’s own heart. He loves the Lord, seeks His will in all his decisions, and takes seriously his responsibility to raise up our children to know the Lord too. God has blessed me with a husband who is easy to follow and trust.

As for me, I am the blessed wife of my handsome hubby, and the blessed mommy to all these wonderful kids. I have the honor of caring for our home and family full time, and the privilege of homeschooling these awesome kids. I enjoy photography, blogging, writing, reading, having people visit our home, playing games, and just spending time with my family in my blessed home.

Writer - 13 years, 8th grade

Writer has a gift for writing of all sorts, but her favorite has always been creative writing, especially stories and plays. Her interest in the written word also shows itself in her love of reading. She devours books so quickly that it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with new, interesting and suitable material for her! She is a gifted pianist and has recently endeavored to teach herself to play the guitar. Writer is a bright student and wonderful helper in the home. She loves children, both her own siblings and those she helps care for in the church nursery.

Handyman - 11 years, 6th grade

Handyman loves to serve our family and others in tangible ways. A real gentleman, he carries bags and opens doors. He enjoys physical work, continuing to serve our church each Sunday by helping set up and tear down for our “portable church” services. He tends to the garden, shovels snow, and jumps in to any home improvement project he can get his hands on. In addition to being quite the handyman, he is also a gifted athlete (baseball is his favorite), an analytical math whiz, and has become quite a guitarist in recent months. He loves games, baseball cards, history, the Bible, and reading.

Cowgirl - 10 years, 4th grade

Cowgirl earned her blogname for herself because she loves horses, but her personality is so much more than lassos and boots. Cowgirl is a true picture of grace and sweetness. She is kind-hearted, cheerful, and enthusiastic. Add to that her love for children, and not surprisingly, she is a wonderful babysitter. In school, she loves history and writing, and she is a beautiful pianist. Cowgirl is very responsible and seeks for ways that she can bless others by meeting their needs.

Happy - 8 years, 2nd grade

Happy is joyful, loving, and enthusiastic about life. He has an amazing temperament and blesses everyone he meets with his contagious joy. Happy loves math, reading, and baseball. He is usually singing or whistling, and has recently begun taking piano lessons from his older sister, Writer. When he’s not busy with school or chores, he likes to read, ride his bike, play ball in the backyard, or build Legos.

Strawberry - 6 years, Kindergarten

Strawberry is bright and sweet. Our artsy girl, she loves to sing, dance and draw. She also has a unique sense of fashion that we can’t quite figure out, but somehow it all works for her. Pink shirt, red skirt, and orange knee socks, or perhaps a vision of plaid in four different patterns. For her age, she is amazingly adept at styling (and to my horror, cutting) her own hair. But like I said, she’s our artsy girl and seems to have an eye for such things. In addition to being creative, Strawberry is a good student, and has become quite a good reader in the past year.

Conductor - 4 years

Conductor is a cuddly boy. He loves to give hugs, sit next to me and read stories, and he especially loves to have his back rubbed. He’s still a fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, but he has branched out to other interests as well. He likes to draw pictures, write letters and numbers, and build with Lego, Knex, and Rokenbloks. Conductor’s speech skills have grown leaps and bounds in the past year. A side result of this is that he’s recently discovered that he likes to sing, much to the joy of his family.

Sonshine - 2 years

Sonshine is still a little ray of sunshine most of the time, but at two years old, he has his rainy days as well. Sonshine is a child with a will stronger than any of our previous children, and perhaps stronger than my own. There’s a lot of pressure that comes with parenting this little man of iron, but we daily see hints that his character is being shaped. No doubt about it, Sonshine will grow into an influential man some day, and our goal is to train him to influence it for good and for God! :-) On his sunny days, which are most days, Sonshine is cheerful and expressive, and makes us all smile with his adorable language patterns. He loves cars, be-be ba-ba (baby brother), bikes, cars and uh-panes (airplanes), and “uh-pets” (wonder pets).

Handsome

Handsome is a joyful blessing to our family. He is soft and warm, cuddly, an easy smiler, attentive and intrigued by the people and world around him. Simply put, he’s everything a baby ought to be. Except for the biting. With six teeth by the age of 7 months, he loves to gnaw on everything within reach, and since he’s often being held, Mommy is typically within reach! But he makes up for the bite marks by looking at us with his sweet eyes and soft head, which is always ready to rest on a shoulder. Pure bliss.

I was so excited after finding this site. I currently am pregnant with my 7th and am having a really hard time keeping my focus as everyones solution to everything is “me time” which they do not seem to understand means nothing to me because as soon as I walk out the door I am in tears and want to be back home or the other favored response is you did it to yourself by having all those kids. I do not find many groups that seem to be close in age as yours are. My oldest will have turned 9 four months before I have my baby and no I have no multiples. I will enjoy using your site and resources and greatly appreciate your sharing!

I just happened upon this tonight and thought it a great place to add my two cents… I was in church the other day a couple rows in front of this great family here. My daughter and her bf were visiting us and the church that morning. When church was over I said to them…did you have any idea that there was a family of seven children sitting a couple rows behind us? NO! They were both amazed that this family was in church let alone so close to us! Seven children from less than one to 11 and not a peep was heard from them! They are not children who don’t know how to have fun, they are a family who knows how to be respectful in church!

Hi :) i found your blog as i was searching for a lesson for sunday school about Mephibosheth… I’m truly blessed by your site. Your family sounds amazing :) please say hi to everyone. May God keep you and your household safe, blessed and joyful.

I was happy to discover your blog today. I was unable to find a contact link. I hope it’s OK that I’m contacting you through a public comment. I’ve developed an educational program for Windows called SpellQuizzer that helps children learn their spelling and vocabulary words without the battle that parents often have getting them to sit down and write them out while the parents dictate to them. The parent enters the child’s spelling words into the software making a sound recording of each word. Then the software helps the child practice his or her words. It really helped my children with their weekly spelling lists.

Hello. I don’t know your family, but just received an email about the birth of your daughter. Congratulations! Your family is beautiful and I recognized your “Happy” son from helping with homeschool baseball. He stood out to me as being just that, happy. And I enjoyed my every interaction with him. May your transition be a smooth and blessed one as you bring your daughter home. You look great!